Iterative development and feedback latency

2026-07-28T08:30:00.000Z

Agile processes didn’t make our teams effective. Fast feedback did.

After several years working in teams that adopted Agile processes such as Scrum, I’ve realised that Agile itself wasn’t the thing that made those teams effective.

The real value was much simpler. Short feedback loops.

When design, implementation, and testing happen close together, problems surface while the system is still fresh in everyone’s mind.

• Bugs are easier to diagnose.
• Design mistakes are easier to correct.
• Teams adjust course quickly.

Contrast that with the older phase model many of us experienced earlier in our careers:

Design → months later → implementation → months later → testing.

By the time testing begins, the developer has moved on and the original design assumptions are long forgotten. I have been in this position several times.

Iterative development fixes this by compressing the feedback cycle. Interestingly, this idea isn’t new.

Over 25 years ago I was working at a telecoms company where we developed systems iteratively for exactly this reason: shorten the distance between building something and learning whether it actually works. This was long before anyone was talking about Agile processes (such as Scrum.)

In the teams I’ve led since, we’ve followed the same principle: short iterations, regular delivery, visible work, minimal ceremony.

It has worked well.

Not because of the label attached to the process, but because it reduces the latency between doing the work and learning whether it was correct.

Good engineering isn’t about process labels. It’s about building systems and teams that learn quickly.